Apple is the Top Manufacturer for Advertisers, but Google Owns OS

Millennial Media has released its November Mobile Mix report, examining how mobile ad impressions on its platform broke down during Q3, 2012.

The platform was dominated by two manufacturers – Apple in the lead (accounting for 31.5 per cent of all impressions) and Samsung (24.4 per cent). The next closest manufacturer was HTC, with a share of less than eight per cent.

Despite Apple’s lead as the biggest single manufacturer – and the iPhone’s position at the top of the handset charts, with a 16 per cent share, over triple that of the second most popular handset, Samsung’s Galaxy S – in terms of OS it was beaten to the top spot by Google. Android made up 52 per cent of total impressions, with 15 of the top 20 mobile devices running the OS.

iOS took second place at 34 per cent, with BlackBerry in a distant third place (eight per cent) and Windows in fourth (five per cent). By comparison, in Q2 2011 iOS held the top spot with 50 per cent of impressions, Android was second at 25 per cent, and BlackBerry held 18 per cent.

75 per cent of impressions came from smartphones, pushing feature phones’ share down to five per cent, from 14 per cent in Q3, 2011. ‘Non-phone connected devices’, which includes tablets and eReaders, saw an increase of six percentage points year-over-year, up to 20 per cent. Three tablets – the iPad, Samsung Galaxy Tab, and Kindle Fire – made it into the top 20 mobile devices overall.

“Consumer adoption of tablets, e-readers and other connected devices continues apace, with impressions from these non-phone devices now making up 20 per cent of the total on our platform,” Millennial Media EMEA managing director Gavin Stirrat told Mobile Marketing. “This is a huge opportunity for advertisers, to leverage the larger, richer canvas and unique browsing habits to engage consumers with an immersive brand experience.”

The report also shines a spotlight on iOS 6, which saw a growth in impressions of around 4,1000 per cent in the first month after release – roughly the same as iOS 5’s launch last year. However, iOS 6’s impression volumes were much higher, averaging 1,200 per cent greater than iOS 5 during the first weeks following its release.